Pirate's Island, the water park his company, Lageoc Ltd., is building off Ninth Street, between Stadium Drive and Interstate 94, opens June 1. He plans to offer a little something for everyone.

"I've looked at at least 20 different water parks, and all of them have their niche thing," said Hollenbeck, president of Lageoc. "They're really based on huge hotels next door -- they're geared toward weekend visits. We felt that model was really vulnerable to the economy."

Lageoc is constructing a hotel next door to the water park, which is housed in the SWAT Fitness Club building, but he describes the hotel as mid-range upscale. It will draw weddings and business travelers, and guests will be able to use all the facilities at SWAT, including the fitness club. The water park, however, will charge an admission of about $10 to $15 for walk-ins and hotel guests.

One of the main reasons Hollenbeck decided to build Pirate's Island was because SWAT didn't have a pool. But he found that it wouldn't be economical to build a pool just for members of the fitness club.

"So I decided that if I was going to build a pool, I might as well build other things there so the community could use it on the weekends," he said.

During the day, SWAT members will be able to use the water park pools, including a couple of lanes for laps and an area for aerobics. In the evenings and weekends, families can enjoy Pirate's Island as a water park, with pools, slides and a lazy river, plus Jacuzzis and a tiki bar for parents. Having a pool will also provide an opportunity to offer swimming lessons and host birthday parties.

"This seemed to make more sense," he said. "If you look at the industry today, people are looking for facilities that have more well-rounded opportunities, where their family can be a member, kind of like a country club, and they can enjoy a multitude of things their family can do."

Hollenbeck designed the park so parents would be able to see their kids pretty much everywhere. And the facility is designed for evening and shorter weekend visits of maybe three hours.

"It's kind of a smaller thought process," he said. "It's not big and grandioso -- it's little and grandioso."

He admits no water park is perfect, but Lageoc has been working hard to make Pirate's Island a comfortable environment for guests. The company invested in an air-quality system to deal with the necessary evil of chlorine and will be using new inventions for pool maintenance, such as a UV system to kill bacteria.

"I have been to good facilities that are operated very well -- their water is very clean, you can tell it is, their systems work good, and you don't leave there smelling like you just jumped in your washing machine with a gallon of Clorox," he said. "That's the type of operation we want to provide here."

Another challenge Lageoc faced was building in this economy. Banks don't have a lot of history on water parks, which makes them very hard to finance, Hollenbeck said. So Lageoc built the park mostly out of its working capital.

"We've constructed every part of this water park ourselves, through our company," he said. "We've built the ship, we've built the waterfall, we've built the trees and the rocks, and it's been a lot of fun doing this."

The company now has financing, which will close in two months. If the first part of the park is successful, Lageoc is ready to build a second part -- a 10,000-square-foot lagoon with a wave pool, a sandy "beach" and a glass ceiling.

"With gas being expensive, I tried to create something that local people could come to and feel like they're in Florida," Hollenbeck said.

Hollenbeck's long-range goal is to create similar facilities in other places, he said. Lageoc would redesign the complex, but it would still include the hotel, convention center, water park, fitness center, hair salon and a few other amenities. The company is looking at sites in Grand Rapids; Charlotte, N.C.; and Fargo, N.D., to name a few.

"So you'd have a new hotel complex that would cover everything from weddings, conventions, business travelers, water park people, fitness people -- that's our goal," he said.

"Again, keeping the project in perspective -- that's not vulnerable to the economy, that has enough business aspects that work. We feel that our hotel that we've designed is what's coming in the future."